Compro 22418
 

Hey guys,

I got a Compro 22418 in last week and finally got to play around with it a bit. I don't know if what I'm experiencing is trouble or not.

I've noticed that when ever I program it with the radio, it heats up. Not super hot, but as hot as it gets when I'm running it. Is it supposed to heat up like that during programming? My 16016 doesn't heat up like that when programming.

Another thing I've experienced is that the 22418 just flips out whenever I try to use the auto programming mode. I program it, then go back into programming mode and choose the fifth option in the first category, which should put me into the auto programming mode, but the controller just sits there beeping with the pattern that indicates that the data in the eprom is corrupted.

The third thing I've experienced is that when you try to reduced the throttle delay to the minimum (for some stupid wheelie action), the controller just shuts down or drastically reduced output.

Has anyone else experienced any of these things?

I was also wondering if the 22418 can be programmed through the radio connection without the "cable" that Mike is out of stock on.

Thanks

I'm not sure about the heating issue. I have never really checked the heat on my 16024 or 16018 while programing it, but that does sound wierd. I'll try and pay attention the next time I mess with it.

I also have never had a problem with the auto programaing mode. Always worked fine. I can say however that there doesnt really seem to be a need for the auto programing mode. I havent been able to tell a difference from beofre I used it to after I used it. It seems the only thing it effects is the brakes which seem to work fine for me anyway, the drag brake which i dont use and the "non-freewheel" mode which I dont use either.

As far as the shutting down goes, I have run into that consitently with both my 16018 and 16024. It starts to happen as I get around 2/3 of the way through the pack. I eagle treed it to find what is happening and it appears that the LVC is kicking in at a very high setting. (something like 3.4v/cell) MGM says that the LVC is set to kick inat 3.1V/cell. I have not found a way to disable or change the LVC voltage either. I asked Mike about it at the bash and he told me he hadnt run accross that problem. But I have in both of my MGMs. If you set it to "race mode" it will not happen as it disables the LVC all togher, but thats no good either for fear of toasing the lipos. Setting the spool up timing to a higher number limits the amps that the system draws and seems to control the problem for me, but like you said if you want to go out and do some stupid wheelie action it does become an issue.

It just looks like the LVC on the MGMs are much more sensitive than most other ESCs. I have never had a problem like that with a Quark or MM. I can say that I did see similar issues when I hooked the Li-Saver that Mike sells up to my BK12020. It behaved similarly to the MGM LVC.

I wish I could offer you a solution but as of yet I havent found a total soultion. It seems to me that the real soution would be to have lipos capable of never dipping below 3.4v/cell. All of my lipos are 20C cells, but I just got a set of 25C cells to test. I'll see if they perform any better. If you figure out a work around please let me know too. I have been puzzeld by this as well.

Do you have an eagle tree that you could hook up and see if you get the same voltage reading as me when it cuts out? For me it seems really high and like I said, MGM says the cut off is set for 3.1v so something is not jiving. Id like to find out what voltage yours is cutting off at.

EDIT: You should be able to just plug the USB COM+ into the ESC plug that goes to the radio. Thats how I do my 16018. The other cable is just so you dont have to unplug it from the radio.

How hot exactly? Warm to the touch? Say, switching BEC hot? The BEC circuit runs constantly, maybe that's where your heat is coming from. Only the new MGM's have it, so your 16016 wouldn't heat up like that where it's an older controller (if that's the cause).

jhautz,

I don't have an eagletree, but I can say that I'm running Neu 5S 4100mAh 30C packs. Voltage drop should not be a problem, unless the packs aren't as good as Neu claims.

The temp on my esc during programming gets to over 130*F. It's usually cooler than that when I'm running it.

This is my third Compro and all three gave me trouble. I'm not crazy about them, but they are the most robust that you can get right now.

I would disable the low voltage cut off, but that also disables the over current protection too. I'm running my 22418 in a 7.5lb buggy that I've been drag racing with a Neu 1515/1.5d. What do you think are the chances that I'd fry the controller?

Another option if you dont mind running with no LVC is you could run in NiMH mode and you would still have your overcurrent safety. But in reality.... If you over current the 22418 I think you will be breaking other things in the drivetrain. 4100mah 30C/50C lipos are only good for 205 Amps burst anyway. So you would toast the lipos beofre the MGM.

I think you are safe. The 22418 is for sure killing a fly w/ a sledgehammer in any normal application. I can pound the heck out of my 16018 and 16024 never have hit the current limit as far as I know. Besides that the 224 is supposed to be constant, burst would be even higher but I'm not sure what it is.

How are the 30C lipos? I was considering getting a pack to test, but in all honesty, my 20c and 25c packs are holding voltage just fine. Its the MGM that has the problem IMO.

Have you seen the cutting out on any of your other MGMs? Just curious cuz Ive seen it on both of mine.

I think my 16018 lvc cuts in too early as well. Ive got a eagle tree on the way to verify, but i was thinking of running nimh mode and getting an external lvc if it turns out to be the controller. I still dont know how you guys are getting the controller to link up to the pc without that additional cable. My usbcom will not link up to the controller! :(

do you have battery connected to the controller? it does not work with just USB power

and turn on the switch

Yup.. Got my 4s lipo plugged in and the switch on. receiver plug plugged in to com pro the right way. Still nothing using the software dl'ed from the website.

you could also try modifing the communication ports under the setup.

jhautz,

All of my Compros do the cutoff thing. I've been pounding away at getting an 1/8 scale parking lot racer together and am very dissatisfied with what I've wound up with.

I am now running with no overcurrent protection at all and consequently, no low voltage cutoff. The 30C Neu battery seems to be doing fine in that it barely gets warm.

I was running my buggy on 4S with a MM esc, Feigao 8L motor and 18/44 gearing and clocked my buggy many times at speeds of 63 to 66 mph, using a Bushnell gun. The heat was getting to be a problem though, so I "upgraded" to a Compro 22418 and Neu 1.5d (2700kv). Same buggy, same gearing, same tires; just different esc and motor and I'm now running the 5S pack. I should be going faster. The fastest speed I'm getting now is 52 mph. Talk about an $800 let down. I was doing better with the $135 MM and the $80 Feigao on a cheaper battery than I'm doing now.

The weekend before last, I actually had people backing out when they found out that they had drawn me to race against. Last weekend, I was knocked out in the first round. I'm going back to the MM and Feigao on 4S.

I'm thinking that I need to sell this 1.5d.

So...how hard can you push a Feigao motor anyway. Do you guys think that it will explode on 5S?

That doesn't seem to add up, the neu should be doing ~5000rpm more and would have a lot more torque on the same gearing. Are you sure it's the motor that's letting the car down?
Maybe one of the smaller neu's would be able to spool up faster?

Patrick, you're right. It doesn't make sense. Believe me, I didn't spend over $800 to go slower. I don't know that it is the motor that is letting me down, or the controller.

I did, however, notice that the motor than I got seemed to have been shabbily put together. There were breaks in the insulation on the motor leads and breaks in the insulation at the holes where the leads exit the motor.

Then again, I had the same disappointment when I got the 1512 1.5Y. I was expecting performance on par with the Feigao 9XL, but it wasn't there. It turned out that the motor needed higher gearing to get me to where I wanted to be.

I'm thinking that it may just be in the ratings and that I may have made a mistake in thinking that a 2700kv nue would perform like a 3100kv Feigao.

Unfortunately, with the tires that I want to run, I'm out of gearing at 20/44 and 43/13 in the diffs. I just went back to the 1515/2.5d running 18/44 and bigger tires on 5S. Now it's haulin' butt and running cooler.

Hmm, strange. Is the top end of the 1.5d better than the 8L if you use it in an open area. I can kinda understand how the 8L might get to a faster speed by the end of a short drag race, since the small rotor might spool up quicker, but if when given room to get to full speed the 8L is still faster thens something's not right, because the neu should be reving higher. Have you played with gearing much on the 1.5d? I have the 1515 2.5d as well and from using that, it's kind of hard to work out how a 1515 could give poor performance.
If it looks like a poorly built motor, have you talked to neu about it?
Have you tried the 8L on the MGM, to see if it's not the MGM that's limiting the rpm or something?

In a wide open run, the 8L on 4S is faster than the 1.5d on 5S, with like gearing and tires. I know that doesn't sound right, but it is what it is.

I thought about sending the motor back to neu, but the last time I sent a motor back to them, I got treated as though I were an idiot because I thought that there was something wrong with their motor. When they found out what I was doing with it, things really fell apart, because they have no clue when it comes to land crafts.

Start narrowing it down. Throw the 8L in on the MGM w/ 4s. If its slower its the speed control, not the motor.

You really need to get an eagle tree to track down these problems. Being able to measure the power will really tell you alot.

jhautz, I agree. An eagletree is something that I should have invested in a long time ago.

I'm just going to have to go through the PITA of getting the battery out of the buggy. I permanently installed it to reduce weight.

Try switching the motor and battery out and see what happens. Let us know. You have me curious to get the the bottom of this now.

OK, I put in the Kokam 4S pack with the Feigao 8L and it was the same thing. It isn't the motor.

When I ran it this time, I ran it coming toward and then past me at full throttle. I could swear that I heard some sort of rev limiter kicking in keeping the revs down. I have it programmed in race mode and set for nimh cells so the controller should be running wide open.

I am really not understanding this.

I just looked at the specs again on the Compro controller and noted that there is a 150,000 rpm limit for two pole motors. What does that make the limit for 4 pole motors? 1/4 of that?

Is there a controller out there that will do what I want it to do? That is, let a Neu motor spin to 50K rpms.

I think a 4 pole would be half that, 75,000.

Yes 4 pole should be half of a 2 pole motor. 75K rpm

Aangle,

So does running it in race mode at least get rid of the cutting out problem you were having?

I finally got a chance to try my 16024 today, though not for long. Seems I am having similar issues. Running a Big MAXXimum on 6s puts me at about 50,000rpm too. Running in "cut off" mode it cuts out if I accelerate hard, Running in "reduce rpm" mode was better, but did cut out some as well. Running in "race" mode worked great, but after about 5 min it cut out, so I figured I better stop since I had about 15 min running on the batts with no lvc. I think the issue is current protection kicking in, the controller software on the computer said a max amps of 400! However, it does not seem to log amps in "race" mode, at least on my one run. My batts are hardly even warming up at all, which seems weird if it is going that high in amps or if the voltage is in fact dropping below the 3.1v cut off that often. I ran about 5min in each mode, so further running is needed to see just what is going on. And FYI, max temp reported in the software was 56c, so it is not thermalling (I would hope).

If the MGM is cutting out like this, and since bdebde's showed a max of 400amps, maybe something strange is going on with the circuitry of the MGMs? I'm thinking some of those 25v 330uF caps would be a good idea to try out for AAngel, to see if that would help at all.

Looks like I have bigger problems, bad esc or motor, with my luck, both.

400 amps... no way. Something is screwy with there software, or their current measuring device (shunt?).

AAngel, you really do know how to push stuff AND/OR find equipments weaknesses in a hurry! :rofl: You have some bad luck; I thought I had some bad luck, but YOU have some bad luck my friend! :whistle:

Metalman, the caps he has are 35v/330uf... I know because I bought a lot of 30 caps from him.

The Quark still seems to be the controller of choice for Neu setups, and/or 6s (7s M1) higher voltage running... with the internal mod, and a extra two caps on the power leads of course, which is not the biggest deal for such a smooth running controller.

:oops: Those are the ones. I don't know how I managed to put down 25v, especially considering that I also bought 30 of those caps from him while he had them.

If my Compro is fried, it's time to get a quark and caps. Anybody got any extra caps?

Bruce, didn't I send you some caps?

Anyway, I was thinking that maybe the esc needed more voltage. Since it is rated to 6S, I put together a 6S pack and ran it with my 1515/1.5d. It started out ok. When I opened it up, I got the same speed as I did on 5S with the motor cutting in and out like it did before.

I tried another run and poof....smoke. $375 down the drain. Like an idiot, I'm getting ready to buy another one, because I can't just not run my race truck for three months while mine goes back to the Czech Rep. I would consider a Monster Pro except that I fried my fourth one last week, which is why I bought the 22418.

I've come to the conclusion that no one makes a controller that will do what I need it to. I'm going to think about buying another controller. The last project, was $375 for the controller, $280 for the motor and another $240 for the battery to wind up with a setup that doesn't run. I could have bought two Novarossis for that.

Oh, and a question. I need another controller and I really don't want to dump another $375. Is the 16018 enough controller or should I bite the bullet and get another 22418?

Not again Aangel:slap: I don't think there's many people skilled enough to fry a controller rated for 224 amps :whistle:
But something must have been wrong with that controller to start with since it was limiting your speed. Maybe hitting the limiter or whatever it is all the time put extra strain on it?
As for what controller would be better, I'd have thought the 22418 would have been the best bet...obviously not. Maybe try and contact MGM and see what they, because it just didn't sound right. Chances are you'll get they same sort of response as last time (didn't they say you weren't programing right and there was nothing wrong?), but you'll at least need to find out if what it was doing was normal (it couldn't be though) or how to avoid doing it again.

I haven't seen any caps in the mail yet Tony.

Well, that just sucks that you fried another controller!

After hearing you say you now have fried 4 Quarks, maybe I don't want one.

My Compro 16024 has survived! It was the Big MAXXimum that died, less than a hour total run time on it (only 15 min at 6s). I threw my trusty 7XL (first big motor I got) in there and it works great; well, maybe a little less power than the Big MAXX, but esc works.
Guess I got a little more testing/tuning to do today, and a Big MAXX to send out for repair.

I thought that the 22418 would have been the way to go too. I'm really not looking forward to the 3 month wait for my Compro to get back to MGM and then back to me again.

I'm just at the point of indecision again. Do I get a Quark or the Compro. I need a controller for drag racing and the Compro is really well suited to that task, since you can set the time it takes to go from a dead stop to full throttle. When the Compros are running, we've had great success with them.

Our latest project is an XT8 running a Neu 1512/1.5Y on 20/48 gearing with a 5S lipo pack and the Compro 16016 controller and GRP Big Park tires on Axial bead locks. The fastest truck that we raced last night was a Savage running dual Serio .28 engines with the tallest gearing that he could get for the truck and a 3 speed tranny. On every run it was a toss up. The XT8 was moving with the little Neu motor. Anyway, the point is that we had the Compro set for a 1.2 second delay from a dead to full throttle. At the start all we had to do was grab a hand full of throttle and then keep the truck going straight. Racing with a Quark wasn't easy.

I suppose that I could try a 22418 one more time. I just hate the idea of paying that much money for something that you can't send back to the vendor if it isn't right.

Does electronics in general just hate you? I don't think I've seen ANYONE with the problems you have had. Both my orginal Quarks are still running fine. Granted, I'm not pulling ~400A through it, nor am I drag racing. ~1500w seems to be plenty for me. :smile: Gods, 400A would be almost 10hp @18v!

I really haven't drawn any conclusions as to what caused the meltdowns. Both controllers were running fine until I put the Neu 1515/1.5d on them. The motor may have been bad. When I received the Neu, I felt that it had been shabbily put together. The motor lead shrink wrap had breaks in it going into the motor and the leads were contacting the motor case. Although the anodized aluminum should not conduct electricity, I added some shrink to protect the leads. It may have just been built on a Friday afternoon. I'm sending all three components to their respective manufacturers for repair/evaluation.

I guess this is just what I get for trying to run a motor up to 50k rpms.

Now I need a new controller. So...what do I get? Another Quark or another Compro. If I get a Compro, do I get another 22418 or settle for the 16018?

16018 seems to be pretty solid for me. I really dont have any temp differences between it and my 16024. I personally would just go for the 16018.

I dont want to be the bearer of bad news here but.... If you were running that MGM in "race mode" when it fried, they are not going to cover it under waranty. It says so right in the instruction manual. I hope I'm wrong here.:neutral:

Why the duce would they have a 'mode' that when enabled, is not covered under warranty... that's just bad business practice, and plain rude. :tongue:

jhautz,

I wasn't running in race mode when it went, which is why I'm so surprised that it fried. I thought that the internal safeties were supposed to prevent this from happening.

So...what would you guys think of a Neu 1515/1.5d with a Compro 16018 running 5S and geared to move a 7.5lb racing truck? I'm figuring something in the neighborhood of a 18/44 gearing running 3.9" tall GRP Rally tires.

Thats good news at least.


Just Friday night i was running the 1515/2.5D on 5s and 20/46 gearing and the GRP 3.9" tires in my 8.5lb buggy. I was able to run an entire 5000mah pack non stop on a parking lot oval course (Full throttle, hard brake, turn, repeat...) and at the end of the pack the motor was 140F and the MGM 16018 was 99F. It was about 75 degrees outside. So the ESC wasn't even working hard. BUT... I had the spool up speed set the .69 sec If I went less than that I got cut outs every time I punched it. Even at .69 sec I got the occasional cut out. At 1.3sec spool up timing there was no cutting out at all.

You will be drawing more amps with the 2700kv motor vs my 1700kv motor, but I think heat wise there should be plenty of head room based on the very low temps I was getting. The only question I have is the cut out issue. Will the higher kv motor make that happen more frequently?